Source: Tea Gardens Apartments with my boyfriend, a female friend, and her boyfriend at around ten last night. I opened the fridge to retrieve large block of cheese purchased last week in order to make a meal for myself and my boyfriend.
Relation: An examination of beliefs and practices regarding food and gender roles, more specifically concerning a chauvinistic theft of my flipping cheese.
Description: This is going to sound cheesy but it began rather innocently. I was sitting at the kitchen counter pondering what I will write my anthropology blog entry about when I start feeling hungry. I opened the fridge to retrieve large block of cheese purchased last week in order to make a meal for myself and my boyfriend when I discover it no longer exists as cheese. First off, in this household food disappears a lot without my consent. Second of all, I and my friend Thalia are the only ones who cook in this household. Occasionally the men go fast food hunting and return with the spoils to their kitchen counter, but beyond microwaving themselves leftovers or pizza pockets all the calorie intake can be contributed to us females. I never really question this cultural norm unless I'm really tired or cranky, and its prevalent in most family units I have ever witnessed including my own as a child.
Anyway, I know that there are three possible thief's. There's the boyfriends roommate Luke, that guys friend Spencer, and a drunk 36 year old who lives down the hall named Brian. These guys rarely if ever get groceries and I have caught and confronted them routinely eating my sustenance without permission or guile. However, usually they don't eat an entire five pound block without at least making an effort to apologize. Once or twice Spencer had felt it necessary to offer Thalia money if she would just get all his groceries for him because she "knew" more about it then he did. And she had to cook it. And she had to have it ready for him when he got home from work at five. I'm not sure who was more offensive in their response to this request, Thalia or her boyfriend. I felt slightly discontent with the enormity of this particular food caper so I felt it necessary to confront this situation right away. I was expecting a good old meaningless apology with a side of groveling to make it taste sweeter. I was surprised Luke just blew it off saying I could just go buy more and offered to let me have some of his shredded cheese. HE HAD HIS OWN CHEESE HE HADN'T EATEN SINCE DECEMBER!!!! I explained my purpose in life is not to feed him that I wasn't his mother and that I held no latent nurturing response to his weed induced munchies. He looked at me as if I had gone crazy and asked to regurgitate the stolen cheese. Thalia and I were outraged but none of the men we feed felt, or at least displayed, any empathy. It wasn't part of their responsibility was the sentiment they put across. I made pasta without cheese that night. Only then did I get the response I would have liked.
Commentary/Analysis:
When I think about the cultural text related to this incident, I think of the label Susie Homemaker. American culture creates labels and slogans delineating a woman's role in society. Susie Homemaker stays at home so she can cook, clean, and take care of the kids for her husband. Rosie the Riveter builds planes and ships so her hubby can do his job in the army. They are iconic images and easily recognizable. Why isn't there a Carla the College Grad or Alice the Accountant?
I feed to an extent that the male inhabitants of my home don't. Mostly, it's because it won't get done otherwise, but why do they feel unaccountable for the rumbles in their tummy? They honestly feel they don't have the knack for it or the need to. Somehow it goes unspoken that a man doesn't have to learn homemaking skills because women inherently have it. Like we have recipes burned in our brain at birth. I can't imagine the first cave man brought home a mastodon and just dropped it in his sweethearts lap and expected her to make a fire, clean the meat, cook it, and cut it up. How did America decide food was a woman's only job? We aren't the only culture with this idea, I'm sure it came over on ships from Europe like mice and smallpox. But where did they get that idea? And following this idea, why are the famous chefs you see on tv and in movies male?
